a common reader

01 January 1998,
Filed under: MY LIBRARY

Hout op snee

Anton Van Wilderode

language: Dutch
published by: Uitgeverij P
first edition:
printed: 1997
purchased: 1998
binding: hardback
isbn: 9073214408
acquired via: Alfonsine

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Anton van Wilderode: De dag sneeuwt dicht, Kerst- en wintergedichten

01 January 1998,
Filed under: MY LIBRARY

De dag sneeuwt dicht, Kerst- en wintergedichten

Anton van Wilderode

language: Dutch
published by: Lannoo
first edition:
printed: 1998
purchased: 1998
binding: softcover
isbn: 9020933698
acquired via: Alfonsine

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A.N. Wilson: Dream children

01 January 1998,
Filed under: MY LIBRARY

Dream children

A.N. Wilson

language: English
published by: John Murray
first edition:
printed: 1998
purchased: 1998
binding: hardback
isbn: 0719557623
acquired via: GBG

Oliver Gold is a reclusive philosopher living in a household of females. The announcement of his marriage to a young woman of whom they have never heard causes inevitable surprise and alarm. He has been the mainstay of Janet Rose, of her daughter Michal, of her 10-year-old granddaughter Bobs, of Michal's female lover and of the Austrian au pair. His departure threatens them all.
In the world at large, and in the academic world, Oliver has been seen as a potentially great writer and thinker who perbaps has the capacity, like an old-fashioned sage, to offer a new vision for his generation. But Oliver nurses a secret.
At first, his secret is known to the child alone. But his attempt to escape into a conventional marriage opens a Pandora's box from which many demons from the past fly out. At heart, this disturbing narrative is a love story ? the tale of a love which dares not speak its name, but which, once spoken, leaves destruction and mayhem in its path.
Some commentators have dismissed the novel out of hand because of the paedophile theme, but that is not so clear to me. The theme is there, obviously, but it is doubtful whether this novel is about sexual abuse.
As I see it, it is more about the very delicate balance between love and need. And the small community that is portrayed here, is a tangle of many delicate balances.
This is a book of acute observation, lucidly and convincingly handled. To me it is a masterpiece.

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Jeanette Winterson: The World and Other Places

01 January 1998,
Filed under: MY LIBRARY

The World and Other Places

Jeanette Winterson

language: English
published by: Jonathan Cape
first edition:
printed: 1998
purchased: 1998
binding: hardback
isbn: 0224051369
acquired via: GBG

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Virginia Woolf: Orlando

01 January 1998,
Filed under: MY LIBRARY

Orlando

Virginia Woolf

language: English
published by: Bloomsbury
first edition:
printed: 1993
purchased: 1998
binding: hardback
isbn: 0747516040
acquired via: Kent

Orlando: A Biography, published in 1928, was not Woolf's most famous work, but it was one of her most intense considerations of gender. Through the life of the extraordinary character Orlando, Woolf examines the meanings of masculinity and femininity as these definitions changed in Europe over the course of four hundred years.
In tracing those changes, Woolf presents a feminist overview of history from the days of Elizabeth the First to the end of World War I. Orlando, who was modeled on Woolf's close friend Vita Sackville-West, goes from being a young man in Queen Elizabeth's court to a love affair with a Muscovite princess; from Ambassador Extraordinary to encounters, now as Lady Orlando, with the famous English writers Pope, Addison, and Swift; finally, Orlando experiences childbirth.

More on Virginia Woolf.

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Poëzie verkoopt niet!

01 January 1998,
Filed under: MY LIBRARY

Poëzie verkoopt niet!

language: Dutch
published by: Lannoo/Atlas
first edition:
printed: 1998
purchased: 1998
binding: paperback
isbn:
acquired via: